The clip is by Clyde Sunderland, famous still photographer who took the most famous pictures of the Pan Am Flying Boats. To bad a that portion of the file is upside down. Clyde was apparently more adept with a still camera – at least at this time.

The Pan American Clipper is an S-42 Sikorski flying boat. Pan Am Captain Ed Musick flew this airplane on the survey flights to establish vital in-flight date to support the M-130 Martin Flying Boat, The China Clipper. Most likely taken in March 1935, Musick flew the Pan Am Clipper on long endurance flights in and around San Francisco Bay.

The intent was to prove that the Clipper had the endurance to make the 2,400 mile hope to Hawaii. To date only about seven aircraft had ever made that flight successfully before Ed Musick made the attempt in April 1935.

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Cheers! Jamie

Actually interesting clip of a clipper plane, although which one is HIGHLY disputed, giubg through the air. I imagine, looking at this, that this required a different way of flying vs the other style of jets. I wonder how close each plane got to one another, because the shots are actually quite close! And of course, whats going down below, with the building of the Golden Gate bridge, is also fascinating. (Though not as fascinating as the shot that made it appear that the clipper can fly upside down What? OH! The CLIP is upsdie down.. sorry,..)

Actually, this is not the China Clipper, these are scenes of a Sikorski S-42 (The actual China Clipper was a Martin 130)but the scenes are rare and well worth downloading. Quality is fair to poor
Aside from being an inportant part of Pan American's fleet, the S-42 is the type of aircraft that thier chief pilot, Captain Musick proved most of thier pacific routes in. On some of these flights, his navigator was Fred Noonan who was later lost on the Amelia Earhart flight.